A Nice Weekend

Anything would have been better than last weekend but even without that fact we had a great weekend. I'm not a huge fan of the clock change in theory but one can't ignore the fact that longer, lighter evenings really make one feel like summer is coming (even if it is gloomy again today LOL).

Yesterday was a gloriously sunny day so we went out for lunch in town and took Lia for a walk around town and the park. I also indulged my inner child with some toy shop shopping and bought her some fuzzy felt, poster paints, glow in the dark ceiling stars and a mini space hopper (the space hopper is in the cupboard for her birthday present pile).

The only blip during the otherwise great time was that I had to do some serious frogging on The Big Zipper but I did that outside of my usual stitching time (I generally only stitch in the evenings after Lia is in bed) so even though it was a pain, I didn't feel like it had taken up precious stitching time. Basically I miscounted on the 'house' section and everything was one stitch up - I did look at it re fudging it to fit but I decided it wouldn't really work so out it came. I stitched more of the border last night to avoid looking at the blank patch but I'll get on tonight and try and play catch up.

I have also decided what I'm getting as my birthday stash from Needlecraft Corner (thanks to their birthday discount). I'll get Shepherd's Bush 'Happy Haunting' (this won't be discounted but I promised myself it as I fell in love with a friends WIP), Carriage House Sampling's Alphabet Blocks Whole Kit and Caboodle and Raise the Roof's The Wrong Side of the Tracks.

Yes I know I've linked to Stitching Bits and Bobs but the pictures are much better on that site.

I think that'll be all my stitching stash, there's actually not that much I want right now, even though I am still enjoying stitching. I might get some cash from the in-laws in which case I'll probably get some quilting fabrics but they might wait and give it to me when we're in Greece in a few weeks in which case I'm sure it'll get spent out there.

Another nice thing that happened this weekend was confirmation that my cousins from Oz are going to be visiting in August. I haven't seen them since our wedding in Greece so it'll be lovely to catch up - they'll sure notice a difference in Lia from being 1 to being 3!

For folks that wanted a quiet 2008 we've certainly got a hectic social schedule this year - two holidays as a family, a long weekend stitching retreat for me, three weddings, three christenings, a 40th wedding anniversary and plenty of visits from friends. We're free next weekend but after that we're booked until 8th June!

March Roundup and April Goals

March Roundup

March Stitching Goals
1. Have at least one finish (probably Redwork) - Yes
2. Work on Sleigh Ride - No
3. Work on Cirque des Cercles - No
4. Start and finish my Monthly Small Start (Coeur de Brodeuse - Tournicoton) - Started but not finished
5. 'Finish' an item from the list below - Yes Alyssum Scissor Pocket is done
6. Work on Red Threads - Yes
7. Work on Grandma's Thread Minder - Yes

Stitching New Starts:
Couer de Brodeuse - Tournicoton (monthly small start)
Wedding Sampler - Dimensions Daydreams Kit (gift)

Stitching Finishes:
Rosewood Manor - Red Threads Redwork
Wedding Sampler - Dimensions Daydreams Kit

Other WIPs that had some attention
Bent Creek's Big Zipper

Books Read
The Nanny - Melissa Nathan
The St Clare's Series - Enid Blyton (7 books)
The No1 Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith
Morality for Beautiful Girls - Alexander McCall Smith
The Kalahari Typing School for Men - Alexander McCall Smith
The Full Cupboard of Life - Alexander McCall Smith
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies - Alexander McCall Smith
Blue Shoes and Happiness - Alexander McCall Smith
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander McCall Smith
The Witch Trade - Michael Molloy

March Quilting Goals
Finish second Jungle Quilt - Quilting and Binding needed
Start third Jungle Quilt - Yes
Make two squares for the Monkey Buttons Star Quilt - Yes
Finish one of my current WIPs - Yes
Make up the Log Cabin Squares from my last class - Yes

April Stitching Goals
1. Have at least one finish (probably Coeur de Brodeuse)
2. 'Finish' an item from the list below
3. Work on Grandma's Thread Minder
4. Work on The Big Zipper
5. Work on Sleigh Ride

Projects Requiring Finishing
Redwork Bourse
Redwork Pinkeep
Eliza Jane's Needlekeep
Bird's of a Feather Accessories - Needlebook, Scissor Pocket and Fob

April Quilting Goals
1. Finish the first three Jungle quilts as they all need to be gifted this month
2. Finish some of my other WIPs so I can start something new in May

No course this month as we're on holiday for two weeks

Current Stitching WIP List
1. Stitchy Kitty - Snowman Trio
2. Stitchin'Spirations - Getting Lost in a Blackwork Maze
3. Bothy Threads - Row of Christmas Fairies
4. Dimensions - Sleigh Ride
5. Ink Circles - Cirque de Cercles
6. Michael Powell - Cottage Garden 2
7. Be Attitudes Afghan
8. Santa's Journey Afghan
9. The Cat's Whiskers - Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag
10. The Cat's Whiskers - Grandma's Thread Minder
11. Bent Creek - The Big Zipper
12. Bent Creek - Red Threads
13. Midsummer Night Designs - Heaven's Above
14. Teresa Wentzler - Tradewinds*
15. Dragon Dreams - Dragon Virtues Afghan*
16. Brightneedle - Garden Party
17. DMC - Wild Ones Alphabet*
18. Michael Powell - Handmade Houses 4
19. Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Fairy Hill
20. Millhouse Designs - Charlie is Born
21. Dracolair - Dawn Awakening*
22. Bent Creek - Snapperville Series
23. Long Dog - St Germain
24. Noah's Sub*
25. Just Nan - Four Wishes
26. Stitchin'Spirations - Lost in a Blackwork Maze
27. Coeur de Brodeuse
28. Spring Lineup - The Trilogy

Photos to follow - we went out and had lots of fun in the sunshine with Lia yesterday so all my Sunday plans were abandoned...

The Lurgy

Ugh, both DH and I had the flu last week - something I've never suffered from before and I'm still trying to recover.

I was supposed to be on a course last week - I did two days and then, when I got home on the Tuesday I felt so rotten that I went to bed early and ended up staying there until Thursday! DH was about three days ahead of me recovery wise which meant that he did most of the childcare. Amazingly, Lia remained bug free and thankfully so did my mother who was staying with us to look after Lia whilst I was on the course. We sent her home as soon as we felt able to cope though because I didn't want her catching it.

This meant that Easter was pretty much a wash out for us as we had to cancel pretty much all we'd planned. We did manage to visit friends on Easter Sunday as we were both feeling much better but Monday morning I woke up with and ear and throat infection that meant I was in agony every time I swallowed. However I'm three days into a course of antibiotics and am much better now - today is my first day back in work.

The downside of being sick is that no stitching or quilting has been done for about 10 days so I'm rather behind in my March goals. However I have been reading quite extensively and have managed to finish sixteen books so far this month! See, always a silver lining LOL.

We had a bit of a disaster early on this month as our boiler stopped working and the nice man who came to fix it informed me it is 26 years old and on its last legs. It hasn't been serviced or looked at for years and, although he did manage to get it started, we need to replace it and overhaul the system. Cue some expensive quotes from plumbers!

However my Mum has come up trumps with some cash to help us which means we're not raiding our savings quite as badly as we might have. We're collecting quotes for both the boiler and the garden and I'm hoping we can stretch the cash we have to do both. Mum had planned to give us the money so we could get the garden done completely but obviously the boiler is more important. I'd be happy if we can get the whole garden rotivated and the part we want as lawn turfed. Anything over that is a bonus really.

Also, I'm looking forward to creating the garden myself and learning a bit as I go along, if we get the whole lot done for us I'm not sure it would be anywhere near as much fun. The rotivating and turfing is the boring bit LOL. I'm also hoping we can get the garden done for the beginning of the summer as it'll be much nicer for all of us if we can enjoy it rather than spend the nice days looking at the mess it is now.

The clocks change here this weekend which means lighter evenings so if the weather improves I shall be out in the garden tidying up. We've got to weed kill round the patio slabs again as there's a whole bunch of new shoots coming up and I have to clear out four more beds so I can do some planting. Also, if we can paint the outside of the garage and clear up and paint the fence then the garden will look much better (plus it'd be a good thing to do that before they come and lay new turf right?)

So I imagine my stitching and quilting will slow down a bit for a while. I don't mind that as I do enjoy gardening, my only problem is that my bigger WIPs just won't get much attention. However, we're off to Greece for two weeks next month and I intend to take Sleigh Ride as my only stitching so hopefully I should get plenty done. I moan a lot about it not being a real holiday when I'm out there but I do at least get spare time when I can sit and stitch.

That's pretty much it I think - I can't believe March is almost over, to me I'm still somewhere around the middle of the month. Still, the best thing about March being over is that April is my birthday month so I will get a birthday discount order from Needlecraft Corner as my present. I'm already listing what I want but I shall reveal all in a later post when I've double checked with DH just how much I can spend!

One Small Finish and One Huge One!

I finished my redwork piece on Wednesday night - now I just have to make it up into a Bourse. Sorry it's a bit blurred but it's a tiny piece - each block is an inch square.

Also I finished my log cabin quilt top yesterday evening and I'm enormously proud of myself :) It's the biggest thing I've done so far and I'm going to have to save up for the backing material and wadding. Originally it was going to be 6x4 blocks but it's ended up as 6x9! It's single bed size so I'm going to need 4.5m of backing fabric and 2.25m of wadding (hence the saving up).

Here's the finished item and some close ups of the blocks

And finally because I can't get the camera out when she's around without her wanting her pic taken here's a pic of Lia looking a bit wild (methinks it's time for a haircut)

One final thing, Kate of Sparklies has some new hand dyed fabrics, one of which is named Thalia in honour of the little wild thing above. No affiliation (we haven't copyrighted the name LOL) but Kate's fabrics are lovely so check them out...

Pictures!

I promised these ages ago but the memory card was awol from DH's camera.

Anyway it's back so here are some WIPs and finishes.

Firstly here's a sneak preview of the first jungle quilt. It's not quite finished yet...

Here's the current stage of my Log Cabin blocks - we learned to make them using strip piecing so you work on all your blocks at the same time.

Here's my finished pieces

The Santa Cushion (my first blanket stitching!)

The Cat's Whisker's Tuffet

Bent Creek's First Moon Colony

And some WIPs

My redwork

Bent Creek's Red Threads

Tournicoton's Couer de Brodeuse (I started it a little early)

February Roundup and March Goals

February Roundup

February Stitching Goals

1. Make significant progress on Cirque des Cercles - done
2. Make significant progress on Sleigh Ride - nope but I shall pick this up in March
3. In honour of 'Finish it February' properly finish as many of my 9 outstanding projects as possible - two finished and the bits and bobs needed for the other finishes have been purchased (some ribbon and felt)
4. Start and finish my Monthly Small Start - yes

Stitching Finishes:

First Moon Colony - Bent Creek
Sue Hawkins Bookmarker
Santa Cushion - The Stitching Shed (made up)
Spring Fever Tuffet - The Cat's Whiskers (made up)

Stitching New Starts:

First Moon Colony - Bent Creek (February Small Start, also finished)
Spring Lineup - The Trilogy (five finishes start)
Sue Hawkins Bookmarker (a gift, also finished)

Other WIPs that had some attention

Red Threads - Bent Creek

Books Read

The Accidental - Ali Smith
Ottoline Goes to School - Chris Riddell
Teacher, Teacher - Jack Sheffield
Black Heart of Jamaica - Julia Golding
Going Home - Harriet Evans

February Quilting Goals

Finish first Jungle Quilt - almost, just the binding left
Make progress on second Jungle Quilt - I've actually cut all the pieces for the other five quilts
Finish secret gift quilt - done and gifted
Make two squares for the Monkey Buttons Star Quilt - nope but I will definitely do them in March.

March Stitching Goals

1. Have at least one finish (probably the Redwork)
2. Work on Sleigh Ride
3. Work on Cirque des Cercles
4. Start and finish my Monthly Small Start (Coeur de Brodeuse - Tournicoton)
5. 'Finish' an item from the list below
6. Work on Red Threads
7. Work on Grandma's Thread Minder

Projects Requiring Finishing

Redwork Bourse
Redwork Pinkeep
Eliza Jane's Needlekeep
Alyssum Scissor Pocket
Bird's of a Feather Accessories - Needlebook, Scissor Pocket and Fob

March Quilting Goals

Finish second Jungle Quilt
Start third Jungle Quilt
Make two squares for the Monkey Buttons Star Quilt
Finish one of my current WIPs
Make up the Log Cabin Squares from my last class

I'll also be attending the next quilting course on the 15th to learn the curves technique

Current Stitching WIP List

1. Stitchy Kitty - Snowman Trio
2. Stitchin'Spirations - Getting Lost in a Blackwork Maze
3. Bothy Threads - Row of Christmas Fairies
4. Dimensions - Sleigh Ride
5. Ink Circles - Cirque de Cercles
6. Michael Powell - Cottage Garden 2
7. Be Attitudes Afghan
8. Santa's Journey Afghan
9. The Cat's Whiskers - Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag
10. The Cat's Whiskers - Grandma's Thread Minder
11. Bent Creek - The Big Zipper
12. Bent Creek - Red Threads
13. Midsummer Night Designs - Heaven's Above
14. Teresa Wentzler - Tradewinds*
15. Dragon Dreams - Dragon Virtues Afghan*
16. Brightneedle - Garden Party
17. DMC - Wild Ones Alphabet*
18. Michael Powell - Handmade Houses 4
19. Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Fairy Hill
20. Millhouse Designs - Charlie is Born
21. Dracolair - Dawn Awakening*
22. Bent Creek - Snapperville Series
23. Long Dog - St Germain
24. Noah's Sub*
25. Just Nan - Four Wishes
26. Stitchin'Spirations - Lost in a Blackwork Maze
27. Rosewood Manor - Red Threads Redwork
28. Spring Lineup - The Trilogy

She Loves to Sing

For months, and yes, I do mean months, Lia has been singing a particular song that goes 'A dinga danga rob'. That's it. 'A dinga danga rob'. Ad infinitum.

She has quite a repertoire of songs, most of which I have no problem identifying and helping her out with (she's not that fantastic at getting the words right but I guess that's to be expected LOL) but the 'a dinga danga rob' song was beyond even my powers of deduction.

I'd just about given up on ever finding out what the song was (I was hardly going to go to her nursery and ask them to tell me what 'A dinga danga rob' was) when yesterday she finally added a second line - 'with a flippy floppy hat'!

How dumb am I that I never equated 'A dinga danga rob' to 'A dingle dangle scarecrow'?

I've no idea how the 'rob' part got into her little head but she is now singing the whole song complete with her version of the first line and no amount of persuading will get her to say scarecrow.

This is now included in her daily repertoire which I get in the car twice a day. The others are:

• Old MacDonald (who every time has a cow, duck, horse, goat, pig, dog and kangaroo in that order)
• Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar (I'm not sure I approve of her learning alternative versions of things because I have no idea how to assist if she forgets a word)
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (much safer ground for Mummy)
  
• If You're Happy and You Know It (have you ever tried to stamp your feet whilst driving? Even worse she's now added 'shake your bum' to the things you have to do)
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas (no amount of persuasion will convince her to stop with the festive numbers)
• A Whale in a Manger (yes really, that's what she sings and it's too fantastic a line for me to correct her)
• When Santa Got Stuck up the Chimney (because she loves the 'achoo' bit)

It's a bit too early to tell if she's inherited my lack of singing talent. Actually my families lack of singing talent.

My poor father endured years of torturous car journeys when my Mum, Brother and I would sing to pass the time. The phrase 'can't carry a tune in a bucket' describes the three of us but what we lacked in tunefulness we made up in our ability to always remember the words. My Dad on the other hand had a decent singing voice but never joined in because he was useless at remembering the words.

I should add that these journeys were usually around 8 hours long as we were heading from the south of England all the way up to Scotland to visit my Mother's family. My chronic travel sickness meant my Mother had to invent ways to keep me occupied for the journey - I Spy wears a bit thin after a while - and so singing it was. Generally it was old Music Hall Songs such as 'Burlington Bertie' and 'I'm Henry the Eighth I Am' and I'm currently thinking if I can teach Lia a couple that'll confuse the heck out of the girls at nursery!

Friends

Last year passed in a bit of a blur for us as a large chunk of it was taken up with the whole process of moving house which took from early May till late August and by the time we'd caught our breath it was time to start planning Christmas!

This meant that we missed seeing a lot of our friends as more often than not it was impossible to co-ordinate our limited free time. We are determined to make up for that this year and so the weekend just gone we had friends to stay and the one before we stayed with friends.

The first weekend when we were away was fantastic fun - it was three couples plus Lia and two baby bumps as both of the other couples are expecting their first babies in July. A great time was had by all, especially Lia who was spoiled by everyone.

This weekend we had my best friend, her husband and their two children to stay with us and yesterday we were joined by another family of four which meant I catered for 11 (the most I've ever cooked for before was 6). Again a lovely time was had by all and the kids aged from 10 months to 8 years and they all managed to play together with no upsets.

It was a bit of a mad weekend - our house is large but two families living in it means it's heading towards mayhem - and I'm thoroughly exhausted today but I'd forgotten just how wonderful it is to be surrounded by friends whose love and affection inspires and warms.

We had a long discussion about our garden (it is the current topic of choice given the amount of work it requires) as I'd arranged for a professional to come round and give us a quote for some work. Anyway S, the husband, said he'd be more than happy to help and they could come and stay two or three times specifically so he and DH could go out in the garden.

The next thing I know DH and S are out there for three hours chopping down trees, cutting away all the brambles, pulling down old fencing and suddenly we can now see the whole length of the garden! We also have a huge amount of fuel for a second bonfire next weekend. E, my best mate, was also out there with a bin bag picking up the rubbish that has accumulated (we live next to a school and coke cans and crisp packets are regularly thrown over the fence) and all I was doing was making lunch and checking on their baby.

Thanks to their work we're now a bit further on and I was able to have a much saner conversation with the gardener. His recommendation is to kill off the current 'lawn' (read moss, weeds, shoots, tree stumps, brambles and bare earth), rotivate it all and then re-turf. It's basically what we figured we needed to do given the state of it all and at least once it's done we'll have a good, flat, lawn that Lia can run around on.

We'll be leaving two large chunks lawn free though, one patch around 4 metres by 12 metres where I want a veggie bed and a small greenhouse and the end patch - 9 metres by 13 metres - where we'll build up a wildlife pond and garden, a tranquil area if you like. Both of those projects will take more time (because they'll require more money LOL) but if we can clear everything and get it set up then we can look at the next stages next year.

We'll have plenty of other things to keep us busy - garage and fences need painting, the five small beds around the patio need clearing and planting and we're also planning on putting some fruit trees in so once the inital clearance has been done we can maybe put those in if we can afford to.

All the planting around the patio is going to be as aromatic as possible. There'll be a small herb bed and I'm hoping to get some jasmine to train along the fence on one side. I love lavender so there'll be a couple of lavender bushes in the beds at the end of the patio. I'm not sure what else I'll be including - there's not a lot of space and I'm not looking at bedding plants or anything that requires a lot of attention. My idea is that the garden isn't high maintenance, energy will be spent on the veggies mainly, with mowing and a bit of clearing and tidying the only other regular tasks. I have a lot of hobbies and not enough spare time!

In other news my parents have moved house. They have downsized from a four bedroom house to a two bedroom ground floor flat. It's strange because for 31 years my mother lived in the same place (12 years in one house and then 19 in a house next door) so the only homes I remember have always been 'Up Iffin' (the name of the lane the houses are on). My sister still lives in one of the two houses so I will still go up there but if she ever decides to move I'll only ever see the houses if I go to take a peek because they're up a driveway set back from the road.

Still, given my parents are in their mid 70s the new flat is a good idea, it's on a bus route and they can walk to town which is a big improvement from being a mile up a tiny country lane. It's also an odd feeling because they're a stone's throw from where my favourite Auntie lived while I was growing up. She died a few years ago and I've not spent much time in that part of town since so when I visited my parents last week I was wandering around reliving childhood memories.

Valentine's Stash

I chose my Valentine's present from DH - I'm much happier with stash than him spending money on rip-off priced chocolates and flowers.

I got the Blackbird Designs' Beneath the Sunlit Sky Kit and Tournicoton's Coeur de Brodeuse plus linen. I think the Coeur will be next months small start and I'm so tempted to get on with Sunlit Sky but I will stick to my goals and pencil it in as the next new start when I've completed five more finishes.

Oh and I can highly recommend Violarium as an ONS. No affiliation but the chart arrived in the UK from Finland 24 hours after the order was placed, the service was fantastic, the pack includes a full translation from the French and the shipping cost was just 2 euros!

A Productive Weekend

Well I don't know what it was like where you were this weekend but the weather was absolutely glorious where I was which encouraged a very productive time.

Quilting wise I finished the gift quilt I was making, put together the centre of the first jungle quilt, did the quilting for one of my finished tops and sewed the binding on two of its sides. I definitely need more practice re the actual quilting bit - I've decided that sewing straight lines is incredibly boring and I go way too fast trying to get it done. Still, practice makes perfect and I'll work on making myself take time because I'll only end up spoiling the work I've already done.

Stitching has also been going well, I've made good progress on my Small Start for Feb - First Moon Colony - Cirque des Cercles has had some attention and last night I properly finished two projects, The Stitching Shed's Santa cushion and The Cat's Whiskers' Spring Fever Biscournu. I also made headway in finishing The Cat's Whiskers' Alyssum Scissor Pocket.

I'm thinking to work on Sleigh Ride a bit this week. We're away visiting friends next weekend and the one after we have friends visiting us so I don't think I'll get much stitching done for the rest of this month as I have to finish the Jungle Quilt in the next couple of weeks too.

I don't have any pics of the above because I spent yesterday in the garden and it was too dark to take good photos by the time I remembered so I'll take some pics this week and post them.

I had a Stitchers GTG at mine on Saturday. A couple of my friends run online stores so we filled my house with their stock and had a great time rummaging through it all. Kate from Sparklies was one of them and she was kind enough to bring me some dye to do a piece of fabric. I bought a metre of white/silver metallic off her last year with the idea of dyeing it at some point and when I got given Row of Christmas Fairies for Christmas I decided that I needed that particular fabric dyed a paleish blue (and I needed it NOW! LOL)

Kate ran a dyeing class last June when a bunch of us stitchers went away together for the weekend so I was confident enough to go ahead with the dyeing (and her great instructions helped too) and the fabric has come out just as I wanted. I've got half a metre left which I intend to dye during her class at this years GTG as I want it the same blue but with a hint of purple so I need a bit of guidance. I have so many christmas/snow designs that I'm sure I'll get through the fabric in no time!

As I mentioned we spent a large part of yesterday in the garden starting to clear up a bit. We finally had the bonfire we'd been putting off since October. Okay it's not that environmentally friendly but we had so much to get rid of it really was the only way. Since moving in we've taken around 150 large bags of garden waste to the tip and we had more than all of that to burn yesterday. Plus we have about as much again (if not more) to cut down and remove so the bonfire has at least given us the chance to clear the backlog.

I had a chat with DH about my plans for the garden. He's not really a gardener, okay, he's not at all a gardener, so he's happy to let me decide what I want to do and then help me when he has to. I want to plant a couple of fruit trees as we've taken several trees out (because they're in the wrong places and not particularly nice) so I want to put some back and I figured fruit trees are a good plan. I'm also hoping to put some fruit bushes in as well so I'll be doing lots of research into what my options are. At the moment I'm thinking Pear, Plum and Cherry Trees but that could change.

I'm also going to have two vegetable beds and a small greenhouse. Obviously this is not something that will happen this year but we can at least plan it out and get started. We've decided to fence off the last quarter of the garden (the bit that still needs clearing that DH refers to as 'The Secret Garden') and leave that till last as it's going to take a lot of work to get it sorted. There's the remains of a pond, a million blackberry brambles, trees, shrubs and a lot of bricks embedded in the soil.

See, I told you it was a productive weekend!

One final cheerful note, I was spoiled with Stash this weekend. I was gifted with a couple of Fat Quarters and two lovely charts, I bought (shhhhh, don't tell) a few charts on Saturday because they were reduced and I'm awaiting some stash in the post which I ordered for DH to give me for Valentines (much more rewarding than flowers and choc). Oh and Bent Creek finally released the last of their Red Thread charts and the next part of The Big Zipper so those are included in the packages winging their way to me (my enforced Wagon ride included those as 'allowed' purchases)

Who does she look like?

I've put together a calendar for my parents as part of their christmas present for the last couple of years - the first year was pics of Lia but for the second one I thought it would be fun to include pics of the whole family as kids.

Anyway, I ended up scanning lots of old family photos including some of me and my brother which, I think you will agree, prove three important points:

1. We grew up in the 70s and my Mum had bad taste in clothes
2. My brother remains unchanged by the passing of time (except maybe getting taller)
3. Without doubt Lia looks like her Mummy!

Pic of Lia

January Roundup and February Goals

January Roundup

Stitching Finishes:

Newton's Law - Keep Calm
Brightneedle - Eliza Jane's Needlekeep
The Stitching Shed - Santa Cushion
Simply Heritage - Ginny
Just Nan - Secret Snowdrift

Stitching New Starts:

Brightneedle - Eliza Jane's Needlekeep (January Small Start, also finished)
Stitchin'Spiration - Lost in a Blackwork Maze (GFJ Start)

Current Stitching WIP List

1. Stitchy Kitty - Snowman Trio
2. Stitchin'Spirations - Getting Lost in a Blackwork Maze
3. Bothy Threads - Row of Christmas Fairies
4. Dimensions - Sleigh Ride
5. Ink Circles - Cirque de Cercles
6. Michael Powell - Cottage Garden 2
7. Be Attitudes Afghan
8. Santa's Journey Afghan
9. The Cat's Whiskers - Birds of a Feather Dilly Bag
10. The Cat's Whiskers - Grandma's Thread Minder
11. Bent Creek - The Big Zipper
12. Bent Creek - Red Threads
13. Midsummer Night Designs - Heaven's Above
14. Teresa Wentzler - Tradewinds*
15. Dragon Dreams - Dragon Virtues Afghan*
16. Brightneedle - Garden Party
17. DMC - Wild Ones Alphabet*
18. Michael Powell - Handmade Houses 4
19. Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Fairy Hill
20. Millhouse Designs - Charlie is Born
21. Dracolair - Dawn Awakening*
22. Bent Creek - Snapperville Series
23. Long Dog - St Germain
24. Noah's Sub*
25. Just Nan - Four Wishes
26. Stitchin'Spirations - Lost in a Blackwork Maze
27. Rosewood Manor - Red Threads Redwork

Books Read

Secret of the Sirens
The Gorgon's Gaze
Mines of the Minotaur
The Chimera's Curse
The Diamond of Drury Lane
Cat Among the Pigeons
Den of Theives
Cat O' Nine Tails

All of the above by Julia Golding (yes I did get a bit carried away with her novels but I blame Amazon Marketplace sellers who list books for 1p...)

February Stitching Goals

1. Make significant progress on Cirque des Cercles
2. Make significan progress on Sleigh Ride
3. In honour of 'Finish it February' properly finish as many of my 9 outstanding projects (listed below) as possible
4. Start and finish my Monthly Small Start

Projects Requiring Finishing

Redwork Bourse
Redwork Pinkeep
Eliza Jane's Needlekeep
Alyssum Scissor Pocket
Spring Fever Tuffet
Christmas Cushion
Bird's of a Feather Accessories - Needlebook, Scissor Pocket and Fob

New Projects

Bent Creek - First Moon Colony (Monthly Small Start)
The Trilogy - Spring Line Up (Five Finishes Start)

February Quilting Goals

Finish first Jungle Quilt
Make progress on second Jungle Quilt
Finish secret gift quilt (all will be revealed later)
Make two squares for the Monkey Buttons Star Quilt

I'll also be attending the next quilting course on the 21st to learn the Log Cabin technique

Whew, that's some list!

I'm pleased I've managed my first five finishes - it'll be harder going from now on as there's less small projects involved but if I keep my 'monthly start' projects small then that should help keep the numbers up - I'm hoping that for most of them I can start and finish them in the same month.

The pictures that aren't in the last post...

Here's my finished Newton's Law project

Here's my Snowman WIP after some attention

Here's the first two squares from the first Jungle Quilt:

And because she demanded to have her picture taken while I had the camera out, here's some of Lia (with Neh-Naw and Gung-Gah)

A Busy Weekend

Well the reward for my boast about Lia's potty training was a phone call from her nursery at 2pm last Thursday to say she'd had an extremely nasty bout of diarrhea and could I come take her home. Oh and by the way we just threw her trousers away because they were pretty much ruined...

She's fine though, other than the obvious sign she didn't show any other symptoms so I think it was more than likely something she ate. Still we used pullups over the weekend just to be on the safe side.

The big news of today though is last night was her first dry night! She bounded out of bed this morning shouting 'need a wee' and raced to the bathroom rather than her usual using the nappy and then saying she needed to go. Oh and we've now got her using the toilet rather than the potty which is great - no need to drag a potty around with us when we go visiting.

We had quite a productive weekend - several runs to the tip with rubbish, cleaning up and getting some more work done in the house. I'm hoping for some good weather at weekends so I can get out in the garden and do some clearing. Lia's birthday is a Sunday this year so we're going to have a 'BBQ open day' for friends and family so people can come when they like, leave when they like and bring offerings to be frazzled by DH. This means I've got till June to get the garden in good shape for kids to be playing.

Crafting wise I've been having fun too - I finished my Newton WIP last night and have made a bit of progress on my Redwork and Snowman WIPs. I've also done the first two squares of my Jungle Quilts. I've done the cutting for three quilts and now it's the sewing. I've had news of more babies this week so I'm now planning five quilts! It's fantastic fabric for kids though - bright, cheerful and non-gender-specific so I'm going to stick with my original design plan because it's a quick and simple one. I need to complete one quilt in four weeks, the next two by the end of April (to take to Greece) and then the final two by the end of July (we have two sets of friends due with their first babies two weeks apart).

I'll post some pics of the squares and the stitching later - it was too late last night to take any as I was waiting till Newton was done (I just had all that nasty backstitching to complete).

I'm also pleased that I've managed to read several books this month. I used to read two or three books a week pre Lia but for obvious reasons (not least my increase in hobbies) that dropped to about one a month if I was lucky. I'm trying to get at least 30 mins a day as I have a huge pile of 'too read' books that I want to work my way through.

I'm on another course for work tomorrow and Wednesday so Thursday I'll be posting my first monthly roundup of achievements plus my Feb goals. I intend to only focus on two WIPs next month - Sleigh Ride and Cirque des Cercles. Kathy's comment re CdeC reminded me why I always said I'd not join SALs because I'm so easily distracted LOL. Seriously though, I joined the Snowbird SAL to encourage me to get on with CdeC so I am determined to get back on with this one. Sleigh Ride is the same, I absolutely love this one stitched up so I want to get on with it - I'd like to have both these finished and framed by the end of the year.

Dry!

We've had three dry days.

What's that I hear you ask?

Potty training.

There have been no accidents for three whole days now.

Obviously now I'm posting this there'll be wee everywhere but I don't care, three days in a row is fantastic. She's not quite there with number twos but she does generally ask for a nappy if she needs to poo which is better than the alternative.

We're still on nappies at nighttimes but she's better at waking up in the morning and heading straight to the potty so I'm hoping we're well on the way to being totally toilet trained.

And yet more stitching

I did this piece as my monthly small start:



It's Eliza Jane's Needlekeep from Brightneedle. I used the only piece of 32ct fabric I had that was vaguely close to the charted fabric - it's a hand-dyed opalescent but I don't know where from as I rescued it from a friend who hates opal fabric.

Obviously I now have to finish it properly. I think I'm going to try and have a 'finishing weekend' every month so I get one or two pieces done at a time.

Here's another couple of WIPs. My GFJ start from Stitchin'Spirations - Lost in a Blackwork Maze (I'm still considering the colours)



And here's one of the three snowmen from Stitching Kitty - I started him just before Christmas and I'm going to work on him a bit - alternating with my Newton's Law WIP

Sleep Deprivation...

Lia seems determined to remind us what it's like to have a new baby in the house - probably to deter us from doing just that LOL.

She was running a fever Friday night having spent most of the day on the couch doing very little so the lethargy and sickness led to a pretty rough night.

Then on Saturday afternoon she had a bad nosebleed. We're not sure if she knocked her nose (DH thinks she did but he didn't see it happen) but whatever she did it bled A LOT. Saturday night she was a bit disturbed and she woke at 5am and got up at 6am. We take it in turns to sleep in at the weekends and Sunday morning DH had to get up with her.

He tried to get a nap early in the afternoon but she had another nosebleed and I had to yell him to come down because it was really bad and I needed a second pair of hands. A couple of hours later she had a third bleed.

Finally, at 5am this morning we were woken by her going 'Mummy, nose' and discovered her looking like she'd done several rounds in the boxing ring - pjs were soaked in blood, it was all over Neh-Naw, the bed, the floor, her hands and face, everywhere.

It took us 45 mins to stem the flow and we decided to take her to Casualty just to be on the safe side. The good news is it is nothing sinister, the doctor could see where the bleed was, and we got advice as to how to stop it in future and he said that if it bled for more than 15 mins we should take her back in.

So here I am at home using up my last days unbooked leave (my holiday resets at the end of March) with Lia who's pretty well as normal except for looking rather strange as she has a wedge of cotton taped across the bottom of her nose. Poor DH - I dropped him at the train station to go to work at 7am and if he's not asleep at his desk right now it'll be a miracle.

As you'll gather not much got done this weekend although I did get a coat of paint on the walls of the spare room with the idea that it'll be finished and livable by the end of next weekend (and I can finally unpack my books). I also managed a bit of stitching and a teeny tiny bit of quilting. Plans to get on with my next quilt project have been abandoned for now as I didn't get started and I know that my jungle fabric will arrive this week (I got a shipping notice at the end of last week) so I'll get straight on with them this weekend so there's no pressure to rush and get them finished later on.

Please be patient...

I'm playing with my template (in case you hadn't noticed).

I'm not sure how long it will take or what it will look like when I'm done but I'll try not to do anything too radical...

Update - okay so some of the 'corners' are in the wrong place but I need to edit some more images to stretch them as I expanded the main column widths. I hope to get round to it this weekend (and to putting a picture title bar in so that vivid red goes (which I like but even I need sunglasses for LOL)

Also I'll be changing text colours on links and titles etc. It's just that I'm at work and have to stop tinkering and get on with a report!

Fantastic Fabrics

Okay so my school sewing teacher is probably spinning in her grave right now. In the three years I did sewing at school (it was a girl's Grammar School, we had no choice) I never received more than 20% in exam results and here I am, owner of a whizzy sewing machine, drooling over fabrics and getting excited about planning quilt designs.

Still, if we'd been able to make quilts using funky fabrics rather than blouses that were so old fashioned our mothers wouldn't wear them, maybe I would have been a bit more enthusiastic in her classroom...

Whilst picking fabrics for my next quilting class (which is the Log Cabin technique and I'm doing mine in black, blue and gold!) I happened upon a totally funky Jungle Fabric that I bought a couple of metres of just because I couldn't resist, my idea was to do something for Lia with it but I had no idea what. Then when I returned home I spoke to DH about making a couple of quilts to take to Greece, one for our Nephew who will have just turned one and one for the baby boy of a friend of ours who will be about 7 months old.

I don't want to do some boring baby blue quilts that will get ignored once the boys are big enough to think they're not babies any more so I thought I'd see if there was anything that matched my couple of metres of jungle fabric. Luckily for me it turns out that it's a Moda collection called Silly Safari so I've now got 12 metres of fabric winging its way to me from the US.

Here's a selection from the 40 different fabrics in the collection:

















The first one is the one that originally caught my eye and will be the backing fabric for the quilts. The others are the range of designs in the collection and all come in four or five colourways. I've picked 17 half metres from the collection - the UK is so expensive that a half metre from the US costs the equivalent price as a Fat Quarter in the UK and the postage is about the same - and so should have enough that I can make a third quilt for my Godson.

The two I'm making for Greece will be 44"x64" and I've drawn out the pattern - nothing fancy, just squares and rectangles - quite similar to the quilt in a tin project. The 15 centre blocks will have a centre square with offset rectangles around them then there'll be a two inch border round those and then there'll be a border 5" wide made from 5" x 2" strips.

That probably doesn't make much sense but I'll be sure and post pictures when I'm getting on with the projects.

Sometime this week I hope to start my next quilting project - Star Sampler from Monkey Butons. Here's the pic from their site:



I shall be doing it in blues, purples and silver as I have a large stock of Fat Q's in these colours and this design is quite random. I've read the instructions (three times) and I'm pretty sure I can make all of the blocks - there's a couple that use paper piecing but only very simple blocks.

There's nothing like being ambitious...

Another finish

I'm definitely on a roll...